1PERL583DELTA(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL583DELTA(1)
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6 perl583delta - what is new for perl v5.8.3
7
9 This document describes differences between the 5.8.2 release and the
10 5.8.3 release.
11 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.6.1, first read
13 the perl58delta, which describes differences between 5.6.0 and 5.8.0,
14 and the perl581delta and perl582delta, which describe differences
15 between 5.8.0, 5.8.1 and 5.8.2
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18 There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.2.
19
21 A "SCALAR" method is now available for tied hashes. This is called when
22 a tied hash is used in scalar context, such as
23 if (%tied_hash) {
25 ...
26 }
27 The old behaviour was that %tied_hash would return whatever would have
29 been returned for that hash before the hash was tied (so usually 0).
30 The new behaviour in the absence of a SCALAR method is to return TRUE
31 if in the middle of an "each" iteration, and otherwise call FIRSTKEY to
32 check if the hash is empty (making sure that a subsequent "each" will
33 also begin by calling FIRSTKEY). Please see "SCALAR" in perltie for the
34 full details and caveats.
35
37 CGI
38 Cwd
39 Digest
40 Digest::MD5
41 Encode
42 File::Spec
43 FindBin
44 A function "again" is provided to resolve problems where modules in
45 different directories wish to use FindBin.
46 List::Util
48 You can now weaken references to read only values.
49 Math::BigInt
51 PodParser
52 Pod::Perldoc
53 POSIX
54 Unicode::Collate
55 Unicode::Normalize
56 Test::Harness
57 threads::shared
58 "cond_wait" has a new two argument form. "cond_timedwait" has been
59 added.
60
62 "find2perl" now assumes "-print" as a default action. Previously, it
63 needed to be specified explicitly.
64 A new utility, "prove", makes it easy to run an individual regression
66 test at the command line. "prove" is part of Test::Harness, which users
67 of earlier Perl versions can install from CPAN.
68
70 The documentation has been revised in places to produce more standard
71 manpages.
72 The documentation for the special code blocks (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, END)
74 has been improved.
75
77 Perl now builds on OpenVMS I64
78
80 Using substr() on a UTF8 string could cause subsequent accesses on that
81 string to return garbage. This was due to incorrect UTF8 offsets being
82 cached, and is now fixed.
83 join() could return garbage when the same join() statement was used to
85 process 8 bit data having earlier processed UTF8 data, due to the flags
86 on that statement's temporary workspace not being reset correctly. This
87 is now fixed.
88 "$a .. $b" will now work as expected when either $a or $b is "undef"
90 Using Unicode keys with tied hashes should now work correctly.
92 Reading $^E now preserves $!. Previously, the C code implementing $^E
94 did not preserve "errno", so reading $^E could cause "errno" and
95 therefore $! to change unexpectedly.
96 Reentrant functions will (once more) work with C++. 5.8.2 introduced a
98 bugfix which accidentally broke the compilation of Perl extensions
99 written in C++
100
102 The fatal error "DESTROY created new reference to dead object" is now
103 documented in perldiag.
104
106 The hash code has been refactored to reduce source duplication. The
107 external interface is unchanged, and aside from the bug fixes described
108 above, there should be no change in behaviour.
109 "hv_clear_placeholders" is now part of the perl API
111 Some C macros have been tidied. In particular macros which create
113 temporary local variables now name these variables more defensively,
114 which should avoid bugs where names clash.
115 <signal.h> is now always included.
117
119 "Configure" now invokes callbacks regardless of the value of the
120 variable they are called for. Previously callbacks were only invoked in
121 the "case $variable $define)" branch. This change should only affect
122 platform maintainers writing configuration hints files.
123
125 The regression test ext/threads/shared/t/wait.t fails on early RedHat 9
126 and HP-UX 10.20 due to bugs in their threading implementations. RedHat
127 users should see https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2003-136.html and
128 consider upgrading their glibc.
129
131 Detached threads aren't supported on Windows yet, as they may lead to
132 memory access violation problems.
133 There is a known race condition opening scripts in "suidperl".
135 "suidperl" is neither built nor installed by default, and has been
136 deprecated since perl 5.8.0. You are advised to replace use of suidperl
137 with tools such as sudo ( http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ )
138 We have a backlog of unresolved bugs. Dealing with bugs and bug reports
140 is unglamorous work; not something ideally suited to volunteer labour,
141 but that is all that we have.
142 The perl5 development team are implementing changes to help address
144 this problem, which should go live in early 2004.
145
147 Code freeze for the next maintenance release (5.8.4) is on March 31st
148 2004, with release expected by mid April. Similarly 5.8.5's freeze will
149 be at the end of June, with release by mid July.
150
152 Iain 'Spoon' Truskett, Perl hacker, author of perlreref and contributor
153 to CPAN, died suddenly on 29th December 2003, aged 24. He will be
154 missed.
155
157 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
158 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug
159 database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be information at
160 http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page.
161 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the perlbug
163 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down to a
164 tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the output
165 of "perl -V", will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by
166 the Perl porting team. You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs at
167 http://bugs.perl.org/
168
170 The Changes file for exhaustive details on what changed.
171 The INSTALL file for how to build Perl.
173 The README file for general stuff.
175 The Artistic and Copying files for copyright information.
177perl v5.10.1 2009-02-12 PERL583DELTA(1)